Carried in triumph by hundreds of his formidable green berets the day after the putsch in Gabon, General Brice Oligui Nguema, until then discreet or even secret, is described as a man acting with an iron fist in a velvet glove. In five days, this head of the praetorian guard of President Ali Bongo Ondimba, whom he overthrew, embarked on a veritable ultra-mediatized marathon.
He invited all the “living forces of the nation”, in addition to diplomats and international organizations, to explain that he had taken power to “avoid a bloodbath”, put an end to “massive corruption” and to “catastrophic governance” after fifty-five years of the Bongo dynasty, and redistribute Gabon’s immense wealth to the poorest.
Never raising his voice, the athletically built, bald-headed 48-year-old lectured business leaders, religious leaders, trade unionists, “politicians” and journalists, and even threatened bosses who participated in corruption, with the glare and firm tone of the soldier extolling “order and discipline”. He promised to allocate 7.2 billion CFA francs (11 million euros) seized in cash from the homes of the most senior officials of Mr. Bongo’s cabinet, including one of his sons, to boreholes for those who do not have access to drinking water.
In front of more than 200 business leaders “summoned” to the presidency, he promised his help to the “true bosses”, “patriots”, on the condition that they renounce the “systematic” practices of “overcharging” against kickbacks to the most senior state officials. “I won’t tolerate it anymore,” threatened General Oligui, staring at the audience.
Above all, he announced the rapid privatization of the pension and health insurance funds, to put an end to the nightmare of “poor pensioners” or “sick people” who do not receive their pensions or are reimbursed, due to poor management. catastrophic denounced for years by civil society.
Throughout these meetings, seated at a desk stripped of ornaments, facing hundreds of interlocutors in a huge room of the presidential palace, he conscientiously took note of each complaint to respond to them. He thus promised “free and transparent elections”, but without setting a deadline or saying whether the cadres of the putsch could be candidates, a new Constitution by referendum and “more democratic institutions and more respectful of human rights”. “No rush, however,” he warned.
A man from the seraglio
The seizure of power, without bloodshed and to everyone’s surprise, by this officer responsible for protecting the heart of the Bongo system at the head of the all-powerful Republican Guard (GR), was anything but obvious. Yet he is truly a man of the seraglio, advance his rare critics.
This paratrooper, a charismatic leader reputed to be a Francophile, quickly earned his stripes as a faithful and devoted aide-de-camp to former President Omar Bongo Ondimba, Ali’s father, who ruled Gabon for forty-one years before his died in 2009. Trained at the Royal Military Academy in Meknes, Morocco, he followed Omar Bongo like his shadow until his last breath in a hospital in Barcelona, ????says a relative to AFP. Dismissed in 2009 after the election of Ali Bongo, he became military attaché of the embassies of Gabon in Morocco and Senegal for ten years.
Fang by his father, the majority ethnic group in Gabon, he mainly grew up with his mother in the province of Haut-Ogooué, the stronghold of the Bongo clan, in an environment very close to Omar, to the point that some call him today hui of Ali’s “cousin”, without being able to substantiate it. Returning to the front of the stage in 2019, colonel at the head of the formidable intelligence of the GR, he will be propelled only six months after general and head of this praetorian guard of the presidency, imposing himself as the keystone of the security system. from Gabon.
In particular, he pushed Mr. Bongo to improve the living and working conditions of his men: repair and modernization of infrastructure, financing of schools for the children of soldiers, restoration of housing and barracks… This “leader of men” quickly won the sympathy, respect and above all the loyalty of the green berets and beyond in the army.
According to a report by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project investigative consortium in 2020, General Oligui has built up a large estate in the United States, where he bought three properties in 2015 and 2018 in Maryland, for a total of over $1 million, paid in cash.
